Childcare reform: what about parents not on benefits?

[justwren]

So universal credit claimants will be entitled to more help with childcare costs as announced by the govt this week.
What about those who aren't on benefits?
We're the ones who have to be finding 14k a year for one child in nursery. I'm not entitled to any benefits because my husband earns £34k a year. That's hardly millions!

Why is there no support being offered to the families who are having to pay for it in its entirety?

The vast majority of people claiming UC are working. The whole point of Uc is to get people working if they can. Of course there will be some such as disabled people, carers etc who aren't working. The taper rates and work allowances for earnings mean UC is meant to make it pay to work but clearly they've decided that the childcare element needs to be more generous.

And I’m sorry the new budget to help the UC family in a way will just make woman to look for lower paid job (part time/ minimum wages etc.) just to get to the UC level to get more helps with insane childcare costs.

That is shocking.

Yes and the £19k is from taxed income! So for a higher rate taxpayer that's £47k of their salary, for childcare for one child. But if you work hard to increase earnings to compensate, they'll then withdraw your personal allowance and "tax free childcare" and funded hours from 3 years old so you end up with an effective tax rate of 85%!!

Some incentive.

Government needs to take a long, hard look at the tax thresholds at all levels if it wants productivity to improve:

amp.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/13/full-time-part-time-work-no-longer-pays-uk-economy

A good start would be making childcare genuinely tax free for everyone with no annual cap. Get rid of the current useless scheme and simply make an adjustment through people's tax codes so that it's paid from gross not net salary.

Op have you looked at UC with the LCWRA element factored in? I believe if you have this element for one parent then you can claim childcare costs ? I would speak to CAB to clarify.

They should just let working parent to reduce taxes on the full childcare - “tax free” childcare rather than cap at £2k a year. £2k a year wouldn’t even enough to pay the nappies or just one meal for our child, let alone “tax free”. It’s a joke.

Yep, exactly what I suggested. As well as obviously far more direct funding to parents whose childcare can't cope in mainstream settings. A disgrace that neither party has even acknowledged the issue of provision for disabled children who need far more expensive care, the usual complete erasure of disabled people. An annual grant of £X per hour to the parents of disabled kids based on their working hours, as a top up to reflect that their children's care is more expensive, would be a very straightforward way to do it. And then obviously doubling of all the thesholds for tax and childcare for single parents to remove the discrimination in the system. It really isn't rocket science to fix it all and asministratively would not even be very complex.

If you have a health condition that impacts you to the extent you cannot do any paid work, you will most likely be entitled to some benefits.

You say you are not working right now, do you really need to be paying for childcare? As a household you are on a pretty low income, so paying for childcare when only one of you works seems nonsensical.

It’s shit, it’s totally utterly shit. I’m so sick of working my arse off for fuck all, our salaries go all on bills! So so fed up of it.

my gas and electricity has gone from £40 pm to £300 pm

my Mortgage has gone from £960 pm to £2500 pm.

childcare £850 pm.

and we get zero help! We cannot afford the fucking basics.

It is madness that there are funded hours available for children who have a parent at home full time, while working single parents get no additional allowances over a couple. Absolutely no logic, the same as the thresholds not being set on a household income basis. If only we had a Government with a single functioning brain between them. Doesn't seem to be any prospect of that even after the election, though.

NONE of that is free, it’s funded by the working tax payer! Both myself and my partner are on a good wage, but the costs of child care and just breathing on this planet is crippling us!

I don't begrudge people on benefits a penny. Simultaneously, I'm an NHS worker in a shortage profession (aren't they all) and can't afford to go back to work full time because of childcare costs for a schoolchild and a baby. The monthly cost is still more than my mortgage, even without it being full time. And yet, nurseries are closing down left, right & centre in my naice MC area because they can't afford to stay open. Completely ludicrous state of affairs. I wish I knew what the answer was.

@PatientlyWaiting21 Both myself and my partner are on a good wage, but the costs of child care and just breathing on this planet is crippling us!

THIS!

The answer is that Government heavily subsidise childcare because it pays for itself many times over!

Yep. And then think about how you'd manage if like me you were a lone parent with two young kids and a full time job and not entitled to any UC or child benefit etc...

We need to not judge people for getting what we want, but to come together to demand what we want from the government AS WELL as what other people are getting. Stop fighting for scraps from the table and demand a damn sandwich instead!

I'm personally paying £24,000 a year in childcare so I can work full time, I earn over £30k, but we desperately need that extra £100-ish a month that I am actually taking home from my salary after tax, student loans etc.

I really wanted universal childcare for working families to come in with the April budget but I don't see that happening while we are not all standing shoulder to shoulder telling the government that we need this to keep the economy going.

You definitely could 😆 you chose not to

@ScruffyGiraffe bloody hell, I honestly don't know how people in your situation do it. Massive respect to you Wish I had something more useful to say, sorry!

@DevantMaJardin 100% agree

How unpleasant.

And do you think it is a sensible situation that a household with your income and savings feels that children are unaffordable? If not, why would you not support reform of the system?

We manged kids on far lower savings/income compared to average wage years ago - but yes, savings paid for quite a chunk of childcare, this was mostly years ago when there wasn't funded childcare available.

I've just been listening to the news... the only change is they will be paid in advance not arrears for childcare, which means they won't get into debt

Thank you. Tbh that main thing I would like to see is the mothers who are in couples sticking up for how punative the system is towards single parents, as it feels like nobody is on our side. Not even asking for any actual financial help, just the tax thresholds being adjusted so that single parent households aren't taxed more on the same household income than those with two earners, have CB removed at half the level of earnings, have half the tax-free allowance, lose the funded hours and "tax free childcare" and personal allowance at half the household income level etc. Just basic fairness and a level playing field rather than the double whammy of trying to do two parents' roles in only 24 hours per day so obviously needing more childcare to start with, and then being taxed more than them on the same income on top of that! Solidarity from other women to campaign to remove this unfairness would be amazing. Over 90% of single parents are women so it is very discriminatory but nobody seems to care. ☹️

@ScruffyGiraffe absolutely noted. Thank you for taking the time to highlight this. I often wonder how on earth single parents (mothers) do it, but in terms of the day to day slog, rather than the financials. I'll definitely think more widely now about it all. We definitely do need to come together and shout for each other, not just those in the same circumstances as our own.